For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Greek union denounces “coup d’etat”

The besieged
people of Greece
awoke this morning to blacked-out television screens. They discovered that the conservative Samaras-led coalition
government had shut down the ERT, the Greek equivalent of the BBC. No discussion, no warning, no consultation, not even with the two
smaller parties in the coalition.

Thousands
gathered outside ERT's headquarters after the announcement, and riot police
blocked the entrance to a studio in central Athens where protesters had unfolded a banner
reading "Down with the junta, ERT won't close!" In Greece’s
second city, Thessaloniki,
some 500 gathered outside ERT’s northern headquarters. The news editors union
called for solidarity from private broadcasters.

The shutdown
is a further twist in the spiral of attacks against journalists in Greece. Journalists
occupyed the ERT building as their union denounced the
shutdown as a "coup d'etat" and called for strikes by all media
workers in the country.

The abrupt
announcement followed a ministerial decree authorising the government to shut
down public enterprises. And it came in the wake of its failure on Monday to
find a buyer for the gas utility DEPA part of a general sell-off of state
assets. Greece
was left unable to meet its bailout targets.

On Monday,
inspectors from the so-called troika of lenders, the European Union, the
European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were back in Athens to conduct their latest review of Greece's
progress in implementing spending cuts and reforms. They insisted on the
immediate sacrifice of 2000 public sector jobs

ERT’s 2,600
staff are to be paid off immediately, whilst, the government story goes, the
three domestic television channels, along with regional, national and external
radio stations, costing Greece 300 million euros ($400 million) a year, will be
restructured, drastically slimmed-down.

According to
government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou, the 70–year-old public broadcaster had
become a "typical case of ... incredible waste", comparing its costs
with the private channels.

"At a
time when the Greek people are enduring sacrifices, there is no room for delay,
hesitation or tolerance for sacred cows," said Kedikoglou.

ERT’s
workers occupied the studios, but the state forces took command. Police went
onto the mountain and neutralised the people who managed the transmitter,
according to Nikos Roukounakis, an engineer at ERT for 30 years.

There are
fears that ERT’s orchestra and its valuable cultural archive will be lost
forever.

Dimitris
Papadimitriou, general director of the radio department and a well-known Greek
composer, said that even the 1967-1974 military junta hadn't taken such action.

"Such a
thing never happened before, not even during the dictatorship."

Papdimitriou
is right to make this comparison. No
previous crisis in the short history of capitalist society bears comparison
with the scale of the unfolding catastrophe, in Greece and around the world.

In the wake
of the unprecedented 2007/8 crash, central banks and governments dreamed an
estimated $12 trillion dollars worth of new credit into existence. They injected these huge amounts into the
global economy which was knocking at death’s door, transferring the cost of
mountainous and unrepayable debts across states, individuals and
corporations.

Extending
its death agony with such extreme measures as ‘quantitative easing’, guaranteed
that a new more severe event would not be long in coming.

The Samaras
government’s response to the troika’s demands reflects the desperation and
determination of those seeking to shore up the global capitalist economy. They will allow nothing to stand in their
way.

Using the
market imperative to shut down a public broadcaster is indeed a form of
dictatorship. For this to happen in the birthplace of ancient democracy, and a small
country which through its long history has struggled time and again against
tyranny, gives this latest twist of events a greater resonance.

What is
happening in Greece is a stark
warning, not only for Europe but the rest of
the world, about the anti-democratic repercussions of the global economic and
financial crises.

No comments:

A World to Win

A World to Win networks with the many organisations and movements challenging the present economic and political system at local, national and global level. Our emphasis is on developing democratic alternatives to global capitalism in theory and practice. More info at http://www.aworldtowin.net